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- [00:00]
Lenny Brauner
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Galen Drook
Hello and welcome to the GD Politics Podcast. I'm Galen Drook. I hope everyone had a nice long weekend. Today's episode is part two of our mailbag episodes, which focuses on some of the more esoteric questions that listeners had for us. Part one focused on current events. So if you're curious about how the public is reacting to news about ICE or the protests in Iran or the politicization of the Department of Justice, I encourage you to listen to that as well. You'll find it in the GD Politics podcast feed just below this episode. Today we're answering your questions on topics like are high profile politicians able to effectively rebrand? Why were polls noticeably better for Democrats right after the 2025 elections? What does it mean that there are a record number of independents In America, fully 45% of folks? And who are the Republicans in polls that don't approve of Trump? Are they never Trumpers or people who voted for him and have since soured? We even share some career advice at listeners request. Once again, here with me is Lenny Brauner, senior data scientist at the Washington Post. Lenny, are you ready for some esoteric questions?
- [01:23]
Lenny Brauner
The more esoteric, the better.
- [01:25]
Galen Drook
Okay, we'll start with Abby. Abby says, which quote unquote professional archetype do you think has the best electability for Congress? And then for governor? Abby says, I'm from the Midwest, so I'm biased towards football coaches for the executive. And then I think someone that is a teacher would be my pick for Congress. Lenny, do you have an answer?
- [01:47]
Lenny Brauner
Didn't the last election tell us that it's veterans who win Congress? At least that was the 2025 election. I mean, both Abigail Spamberger and Mikey Sherrill were veterans. So I feel like that's a pretty good guess for governor.
- [01:59]
Galen Drook
Well, I guess for governor, at least for governor, yeah.
- [02:01]
Lenny Brauner
Though I think, I mean, and then I guess for in the legislature, I mean, I think aren't a humongous proportion of people in Congress lawyers, I think like 30% of members of the House and 50% of Senate members have law degrees or something. So really veterans and lawyers, those are the people that get elected to stuff.
- [02:16]
Galen Drook
Okay, but that's not actually rigorous, Lenny, because in order to calculate the electability of a lawyer, you would have to compare that to the number of lawyers who actually run. And I don't think lawyers actually overperform. And there's a new Gallup poll out just this week that suggests why. So I did not know that this was a thing until Abby asked her Question. But Gallup does long running polling on the best regarded professions in America. In terms of honesty and ethics, can you guess who is ranked the highest.
- [02:56]
Lenny Brauner
Member of the armed forces?
- [02:58]
Galen Drook
No. It is narcissist.
- [03:00]
Lenny Brauner
Oh, okay.
- [03:01]
Galen Drook
Yes, Lawyers, to answer that question is middling. 32.
- [03:07]
Lenny Brauner
That's better than I expected as middling for lawyers, to be honest.
- [03:10]
Galen Drook
No, sorry, lawyers is not middling. I messed up. That's actually funeral directors that I was reading, which is 32% say funeral directors have a very high or high level of honesty and ethical standards. For lawyers, it's just 20%. And that compares with telemarketers at 5%. But 75% of respondents say that nurses have a very high or high level of honesty and ethical standards. So I'm going to say nurses, that nurses should run for Congress, because I think also honesty and ethics matter more, maybe for Congress. I mean, not that Congress is like a bastion of honesty and ethics. People can make up their own mind about that. But I think that's what you want to project when you're trying to get into Congress. I think people care actually a little bit less about those personality traits when they're choosing an executive, which would be like, governor. I think people feel more like you can be an asshole, as we discussed on the last episode. You can sort of like, run through some barriers as long as you get done. And so I think my pick for governor would be one either mayor of a big city, if that counts, or like a business executive.
- [04:29]
Lenny Brauner
That makes sense. I did a quick Google search, and there the American Nurses association says there are currently three nurses serving in Congress. Congresswoman Sherry Biggs, Congresswoman Ken Kiggins, and Congresswoman Lauren Underwood.
- [04:43]
Galen Drook
Hmm. I mean, also, I think issue salience, you can kind of talk about, you know, insurance and healthcare and all of that kind of stuff. But yes, I have to think, mind.
- [04:53]
Lenny Brauner
You, I think a lot of politicians talk about that either way, but, like.
- [04:56]
Galen Drook
From a more, you know. Well, obviously, but from a more maybe authentic place or personal experience kind of place. So, yes, while we have a lot of lawyers, I don't know that if you were in a lab building somebody to run for Congress or governor, you would choose a lawyer. Also, I think there's some stats out there that astronauts have an almost perfect electoral record or something, but not that many astronauts. Actually, there aren't that many astronauts.
- [05:25]
Lenny Brauner
There aren't that many astronauts.
- [05:26]
Galen Drook
Not that many astronauts end up running for office.
- [05:29]
Lenny Brauner
I have a friend who keeps on telling me that Mark Kelly needs to run for president because he was an astronaut. And so astronauts always win. That's what. That's what they say. Except for Bill Nelson, who lost his Senate seat.
- [05:38]
Galen Drook
Yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Okay, next question is from Charles, who says, very serious question. I thought you were going to change the theme music when you first started the podcast. I recall it being a joke to keep it until you became more established. Are we keeping it for the meme and the memories, or. Or is it still on the to do list to get a new theme? I fortunately or unfortunately have kind of come to like the theme music, so it is no longer on my to do list to change it. If that really upsets people, please let me know. Or if you strongly support that, also, let me know, because if I only hear from people who are upset by that, then I will end up changing it. So everyone should make their voices heard, not just the dissatisfied people. But, yeah, for now, I think. I think we're going to keep it. But, you know, this is one of the benefits of this whole rigmarole, is that we're independent. So even though that's the answer for now, it doesn't have to be the answer forever.
- [06:34]
Lenny Brauner
I was always a big fan of the theme music. I was actually surprised when it launched. And you immediately announced that this was the placeholder, effectively, because I always liked it.
- [06:42]
Galen Drook
Okay. All right, one vote in favor. So next question, this listener asks. I saw a tweet about Gallup's US Citizen political party affiliation. Basically, Democrats, Republicans and Independents were nearly constant and tied until the mid 2000s. From then on, Democrats and Republicans have shrunk, and Independents are closing in on an outright majority. So this also caught my attention. I saw this, but it was 45% of Americans identify as independent, 27% identify as Democrats, and also 27% identify as Republicans. This listener goes on to say, this seems to run counter to what I would expect in an era of heightened polarization. Is this just a polling problem wherein people are choosing not to self report as affiliated with a particular party? Or are Americans truly becoming more independent while simultaneously getting less swingy? Lenny, what do you think?
- [07:39]
Lenny Brauner
I mean, I think that's a phenomenon that we've been seeing for quite a while. Julia Azari, who was a FiveThirtyEight contributor back in the day, wrote this Vox piece nearly 10 years ago titled weak Parties and Strong Partisanship are a Bad Combination. And I think this is just kind of another example of exactly that. That same phenomenon, which is that the parties are weak. People don't really associate with the parties, but people have very strong opinions that are generally associated. I realize I used the word associated twice here, but I'm actually using them. It's like slightly different meanings of the word associate. They, they associate with the sort of ideological grouping of the party, even though they like hate the party brand.
- [08:18]
Galen Drook
And why is that bad?
- [08:20]
Lenny Brauner
Well, I'm not sure that everyone would say that it's bad. I think the argument in the piece would be that the party was able, by having a strong party, the party was able to sort of control what they stood for. If you were for this sort of a phenomenon, then you would say they were able to keep things within sort of like reasonable area of politics versus they were sort of keeping outliers and ideological extremes at bay. But obviously that was sort of meaning that there were a lot of people's ideology weren't being. Weren't being reflected by the political parties.
- [08:52]
Galen Drook
Yeah, I think folks, elections analysts, political analysts often poo, poo this data and say, like, yeah, people identify as independent, but they're independent in name only and they ultimately wear a red or blue jersey. And so you kind of have to push people to see how they lean. And then when you do that, you see that only about 10% of Americans or so identify as truly independent. Like they don't have a primary part party that they associate with. And I think that that may be true to some extent that like the universe of people who decide elections is 10% or smaller of Americans, broadly speaking. But the fact that independents, you know, have risen so much in recent years, should we shouldn't just like, throw that information out and say like, they're just BSing us. They just want to say they're independent because they want to feel like special or what, whatever.
- [09:48]
Lenny Brauner
No, they're saying they're independ. The party brands are toxic and they don't like these party brands.
- [09:53]
Galen Drook
Exactly. But I think it could also ultimately. And, and people often say that to say just because there are a lot of independents doesn't mean an independent candidate could actually do well because all of those people are actually partisans, even if they say that they're independent. And ultimately what kind of independent those people are is like there are as many, as many brands or flavors as there are people. Right. Like one person would say, well, I really want you, the Democratic Party, I'm an independent because I want the Democratic Party to be more liberal. I'm an independent because I want the Republican Party to be more conservative. Or I'm an independent because I'm, you know, Socially X and economically Y or whatever it may be. But I think that if you get enough people who, and I've talked about this before, but this ended up happening in Italy with the five Star Movement, which is you get enough people who are put off by politics in general. They think the parties suck. Yes, the parties have bad brands. They don't want to associate them. You do set yourself up for which is what the five Star Movement did. Run a campaign that is whose politics are just anti politics. They basically say the whole system is broken, these people suck. And our entire sort of movement is about. It's like a populist movement against politicians. In some ways the policy is beside the point. You can pick a sort of random collection of things that are broadly popular and focus on that while just running against everybody else and saying that the, you know, the Democrats and Republicans are corrupt and what have you, political movements like that might be easier in a multi party system and you might ultimately still want to run a campaign like that within one of the two parties in the United States. But I think that, you know, the presidency isn't the only kind of race. Obviously there's Senate, there's governor, there's Congress, whatever. Even though, yes, these people have partisan preferences, I think we could be nearing a place where more people try to run anti party, anti politics campaigns and are successful and maybe even as independents, not from within the parties themselves.
- [12:04]
Lenny Brauner
I think that is right. I also think part of the reason that is. Well, part of the reason that's right is I think, I mean, when you sort of dig down in the data, you see that what's causing this increase in people identifying as independents is that sort of young people broadly always identify more as independents than with any one party. But over time we expect people to sort of start identifying with a party that they basically voted with over the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years or whatever. And we're just not really seeing that with Gen X and millennials basically who are sticking to a large. Like we expect Gen Z to have a large proportion of independents. That's just kind of how it goes. But we'd expect millennials and Gen X at this point to sort of have settled into their party identities that they will have been supporting over time. And we just haven't really been seeing that. So still, 42% of Gen X and 54% of millennials identify as independents. And so over time, I mean, obviously Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X are large voting blocs already, but there are still a lot of baby boomers and so over time, as the voting block of non baby boomers becomes larger and larger, I think what you described just becomes likelier and likelier.
- [13:08]
Galen Drook
Yes, to answer the direct question about whether that this. Whether this is a polling problem, it's not so much a polling problem. Like oftentimes pollsters will push you to answer whether you lean right or lean left. And obviously in this case, for the first question Gallup is asking generally and leaves independents where they are. They do, in subsequent questions, sometimes push respondents. And I think in this case, when pushed, we get something. We. The picture looks a little bit different, right?
- [13:38]
Lenny Brauner
Yeah, yeah. We get 47% identify as Democrats and 42% identify as Republicans. So a sort of larger, slightly larger chunk identifies Democrats, which is interesting in its own right because, I mean, a lot was made out of the fact that more people identified as Republicans after the 2024 election, or between 2022 and 2024. A lot was made out of that because sort of historically speaking, over the last couple decades, basically since the 90s, there have been more people who identify as Democrats than Republicans. And so for effectively the first time since then, with the largest discrepancy being around 2008, basically. But basically since then, we'd expected there be to be more Democrats than Republicans, quote, unquote. And so 2022 to 2024 was the first time in a long time where that wasn't the case. And now what we're seeing is sort of back to, I guess, the more recent historical norm where there are slightly more people who identify as Democrats and Republicans. There was one other thing that I thought was really interesting in this survey. This isn't really specific to the question that was asked, but because that survey answered it so directly, I think sort of this was another interesting tidbit, which is that there is a record high of people who identify as liberal. 28% of Americans now identify as liberal, compared to 25% in 2020 and only 22% in 2008. And sort of correspondingly, there's a record low of people identifying as moderate and conservative. And obviously, I mean, unshock, unsurprisingly, this is driven by Democrats, where now 59% of Democrats identify as liberal and only 32 identify as moderate.
- [15:01]
Galen Drook
Never doubt the power of thermostatic public opinion, Lenny, because it will come for you.
- [15:08]
Lenny Brauner
But actually this has just been an ongoing trend. I think there's just a large proportion of Democrats who are more open to identifying themselves as liberal rather than moderate. It's just like a decades Long trend, basically what's taking place here, which is.
- [15:20]
Galen Drook
It'S generational turnover probably, and the word.
- [15:23]
Lenny Brauner
Liberal taking on slightly different meanings.
- [15:25]
Galen Drook
Okay, next question comes from Alexander, who asks, as 2025 comes to a close, this was submitted before the new year. I think an underappreciated political story is the sudden vibe shift immediately following the November 2025 elections. Generic ballot polls were indicating a tough fight for Democrats in 2026, and political analysts were presenting this narrative. I think even whiz kid Harry Anton was analyzing a betting market of the House elections showing a 30% chance of a Republican win and presenting it as authoritative. But immediately after November, the polls all of a sudden looked great for Democrats and the whole narrative shifted on a dime. So my question is, does this seem like the result of hurting? And has the departure of 538 opened the floodgates of poll herding and in conjunction with the discontinuation of some specific well regarded polls, markedly reduced the quality of polling in general? Is the future bleak for quality polling?
- [16:22]
Lenny Brauner
Hmm, the future is always bleak for quality polling. I feel like you can just sort of put that at the end of every episode.
- [16:28]
Galen Drook
My take on this is something that we've discussed before, which is that prior to the 2025 elections, pollsters were still largely using. They were largely modeling the electorate to look something more like the 2024 electorate than a future 2026 electorate. And after the 2025 elections, more pollsters switched to a likely voter model, modeling the future 2026 electorate. I know, for example, highly rated pollster Echelon Insights did this and Patrick Raffini came on the podcast and talked about how they were doing that. And so that would create a shift amongst a bunch of pollsters all at once in a direction that that favored Democrats. Not that public opinion has changed dramatically, but what pollsters are actually modeling or even trying to measure which is likely voters versus people in general has changed. Are there other reasons why this could have happened?
- [17:32]
Lenny Brauner
I think that that is by far the likeliest reason. I would also not call that hurting, by the way. I mean, it's like not unsimilar to the effect is not unsimilar to herding. And in some ways it's like an adjacent phenomenon. But like hurting is something people do on purpose or like because they're scared. I mean, this is just polling is hard and coming up with likely voter models is hard. I mean, there's a lot of art and science to this and the information that we have that pollsters have at any given moment obviously influences their decision making here. And so when you see an election that was sort of a bit of a surprise, like in 2025, Democrats overperformed expectations and the polls that obviously should adjust people's likely voter model. So this is like a good thing, right. Not a bad thing. And then there's the other aspect which I think is sort of maybe some amount of enthusiasm that Democrats sor. Have gained from this election. I wasn't as deep in the weeds here, but I wouldn't be shocked if there had been some amount of partisan non response on the Democratic side after the 2024 election because it was so disappointing for a lot of Democrats. And the 2025 election sort of maybe invigorated Democrats a little bit and sort of maybe undid some of that partisan non response that we were seeing. And maybe that contributed slightly too. But mind you, I think if this existed at all, that was a secondary effect compared to what you described.
- [18:43]
Galen Drook
Next question comes from Studwell. What things have to break their way for the Republicans to hold the house in 2026?
- [18:51]
Lenny Brauner
I mean, I don't think that much needs to break their way. I mean, I don't know what the, what the averages are right now, but like, I would assume it's in the 30s or for like 30s would be the percentage of like the likelihood that the Republicans win.
- [19:02]
Galen Drook
The win the currently 22% on poly market.
- [19:06]
Lenny Brauner
Okay. That's actually, you know, if we're doing buy, sell hold, I would actually buy at that percentage.
- [19:12]
Galen Drook
Interesting. Okay.
- [19:13]
Lenny Brauner
The.
- [19:14]
Galen Drook
To hold the House. Yeah.
- [19:17]
Lenny Brauner
My gut would say something, would say something like my gut is something like 30%. Right. So like it's not a huge difference, but like there is a difference in terms of like, you know, what, what you'd expect quite simply because we're like, you know, we're still pretty far away. Right. Like the further we are from an event happening, the higher like the, like the closer we should be to 50, 50% of an event happening.
- [19:36]
Galen Drook
All right, all right, all right. What's your actual reasoning?
- [19:39]
Lenny Brauner
Well, either way, I, I would, you know, if, if I were a Republican operative, I would want the president to become more popular. That's really what I think is going to be driving a lot of, you know, this is really not, you know, news. But midterms are most often referenda on the sitting president. I mean, there are exceptions, obviously 2022 was such an exception. And it's possible that something similar in the other direction may happen. If one of the foreign conflicts that are currently maybe not super likely to affect the United States super directly turns into something bigger that obviously is a big, big question mark around what that does to an election. So there are sort of outlier things that could happen. But like the, the best way for Republicans to increase their chances is for the, is for the president to become more popular.
- [20:25]
Galen Drook
Yeah, I was thinking about this and I was thinking about an interview I saw with Susie Wiles, who is the White House chief of staff. And she was saying, you know, this midterm, we're going to play it a little bit differently than presidents often play the midterms. And we're going to make Trump a centerpiece of the midterms as opposed to downplaying him and letting Republicans run against him in a way. And that whole idea is that, you know, so much of the Republican coalition now is low propensity voters, that by making him a big part of the election, they'll drive up turnout amongst Republicans. And I just, I think that in order for them to hold the House, they'd have to not do that because the House majority for Republicans, which is already incredibly slim, which is why I wouldn't agree with you necessarily with buying at 22% is there are Republicans who won in districts where Trump is not, what did not win in 2024 and is not popular. And so things that would have to break their way for Republicans, I guess this isn't, doesn't mean anything. But yes, Trump becoming way more popular or Trump deciding to kind of like shut up down the final stretch of the, you know, 2026 elections and maybe some things that are going well in the economy or foreign affairs or whatever kind of, I don't know, rising to the top in the absence of a constant barrage of Trump stories. And then, I don't know, things that would have to break their way for Republicans to hold the House. Maybe the Supreme Court undoing tariffs and the economy doing really well.
- [22:10]
Lenny Brauner
Hey, what, what if the, what if, what if that one Utah seat gets moved back to Republicans? That might do it.
- [22:16]
Galen Drook
Yeah, maybe some, maybe some other redistricting stuff would have to break in Republicans direction. Yeah, I, this one's there was, this one was hard for me, so I'm going to move on. Okay. Matt asks. It looks like there are two questions here. When you and Nate did a Democratic primary mock draft, you both suggested that you would pick AOC first. Since August 2025, per the Poly Market Odds, AOC has gone from roughly tied with Gavin Newsom to trailing him significantly 11% odds to 36% odds. If you did another mock draft today, would you change your pick and if so, why? Matt, we're going to have to put that on hold because we have a live show at the Comedy Cellar and next week, January 27th, where we are going to be doing exactly this, we're going to be doing another draft. So we will see you there. And paid subscribers will get that in their feeds after the fact. So go become a paid subscriber to GD Politics. We are going to save the answer to that question.
- [23:12]
Lenny Brauner
One thing I do want to sort of tease on that, I think one good way to think about this is to think about whether these betting markets are forecasts or nowcasts and whether that makes a difference between what you think where Gavin Newsom should be priced relative to aoc.
- [23:28]
Galen Drook
Mm, okay. All right, I like that. I like that. I might use that at the live show. Matt's next question is, what do you think of Nate's description of the three factions of the Democratic Party as one, the Capital L Left, which would be like Bernie Sanders et al, Two, abundance Libs, Ezra Klein at all, and three, resistance libs, slash Heather Cox Richardsonism. Do you agree with the groupings and do you find it useful?
- [24:00]
Lenny Brauner
So I think I might quibble a little bit about the descriptions exactly of these groups, but I do think it is useful to group the parties into their different factions. And I think I broadly agree that these three factions exist in some form or another. But yeah, I think it's an interesting and useful framework for thinking about how parties evolve and the direction that parties are moving in. Especially, especially the party that is currently out of office and their internal struggle they go through in terms of trying to figure out what their next way back into office will be.
- [24:37]
Galen Drook
Okay, I'll be more specific about my quibbles, but I appreciate your very diplomatic response. I think that it is a somewhat good way for understanding the ecosystem of the opinion pages of the New York Times. Substack, Twitter, maybe even like the book publishing space. It's helpful in terms of understanding the electorate. I don't think that it is particularly helpful, but I don't know that that's what Nate is was necessarily trying to do. This is like an anatomy of think piece writers in some sense to me. But the glaring omission, even if you are just looking at the opinion pages of the New York Times would be like quote unquote, electability Democrats, which is people who argue whether they agree with it or not, for economic populism paired with Social moderation slash conservatism. I think that there are quite a number of actual Democrats who fall in this. There are quite a good number of Americans who actually fall in this category. And there are people who argue for it as a way to just win, whether or not it's what they agree with and maybe they do agree with it, but I don't know where I would place them amongst the capital L left. Abundance libs is like the opposite of this. They're not economic populists.
- [26:07]
Lenny Brauner
Well, I mean, yes and no. Right.
- [26:08]
Galen Drook
The economic populists want like economic intervention, like more regulation on minimum wage and that kind of stuff. But it seems like abundance libs are arguing for more cutting red tape, supply side reforms that make businesses just incentivize people doing business in America.
- [26:26]
Lenny Brauner
Right. But Ezra Klein is one of the big proponents of sort of big tentism, I guess, on the Democratic Party, which is, I would, would, would go into the like, electability side of what you just said. Right.
- [26:38]
Galen Drook
Like, yeah, I guess that's fair in some ways.
- [26:40]
Lenny Brauner
I think he kind of wears two hats in this discourse.
- [26:43]
Galen Drook
Okay, fair enough. Any other thoughts on what I said?
- [26:46]
Lenny Brauner
Well, I think your point is a really good one, which is that one criticism here would be like, be slightly less online and then maybe suddenly those groupings don't make a ton of sense. Famously, Democratic primary voters don't think about. Well, I think there are part. There are times when they do think about politics this way. Right. Like we know that a lot of Hillary Clinton voters then voted for Joe, like 2016 and the primary voted for Joe Biden, the moderate and the sort of more left wing strain of the Democratic Party definitely existed in the 2016 and 2020 primaries amongst voters. But we also know a lot of these polls where people are asked like where Bernie Sanders voters were asked about who their like second favorite candidate in the Democratic primary is and it was Joe Biden or something like that. Right.
- [27:23]
Galen Drook
Like, or the Elizabeth Warren voters who then switched to Pete Buttigieg instead of Bernie Sanders. That's more of like a vibe, you know, a white, college educated kind of nerdy vibe than a, oh, Elizabeth Warren is to the left on everything. Bernie Sanders is to the left on everything. So I'm going to choose him if Elizabeth Warren drops out.
- [27:45]
Lenny Brauner
Yeah, you say this, but Bernie Sanders core supporters, also white, college educated voters has always been.
- [27:50]
Galen Drook
Sure. I mean, well, the Democratic Party, like we're talking about the Democratic Party, so at this point a big part of the coalition in general. But yeah, we've said It a bunch on this podcast, a general sense of will this person, does this person get people like me? Will this person fight for people like me? Like, I think this, that this conversation is a very different conversation than like, how to understand the different factions of the party today is a different conversation than who will win the Democratic nomination in 2028 or what are Democratic voters looking for? I don't think that they're looking specifically for either of these three, quote unquote ideologies. The left, the abundance, or the resistance. They're probably looking for a piece of all three in a person who can just generally fight on their behalf. Anyway. Okay, Lilla asked the next question. I like this question. Do you think Zoron's approval rating will be above or below 50% next year? We should submit this to Polymarket.
- [28:55]
Lenny Brauner
What's his approval rating now?
- [28:57]
Galen Drook
Funny you ask. According to a Siena College poll that was conducted right after the election, so released in mid November, Zoran Muhamdadi's favorability rating amongst New York city voters was 55% unfavorable, 31% amongst statewide new Yorker, like New Yorkers, people who live in New York. Statewide, it was 40% favorable, 40% unfavorable. So. Exactly.
- [29:27]
Lenny Brauner
I'm sorry, is the question will his approval rating be below 50% or will his approval minus disapproval rating be under zero?
- [29:34]
Galen Drook
Will his approval rating be above or below 50% next year?
- [29:38]
Lenny Brauner
Then I think the answer is yes.
- [29:39]
Galen Drook
That's not a yes or no question. That's above or below.
- [29:43]
Lenny Brauner
Sorry, it will be below.
- [29:45]
Galen Drook
Okay, I agree with you. I thought you were gonna argue for above for a second and then I got excited. I was gonna be able to debate you. But yes, I think it will be like things only get harder from here and everyone. I mean, whatever. If you apply a general understanding of these things, you get a honeymoon period and then things. Just as an example, in September, statewide, Mamdani's Favorable rating was 30%. Unfavorable was 38%. And then after winning, he improved to 40, 40 even.
- [30:16]
Lenny Brauner
Yeah. So, you know, extrapolating from that, he'll be at 90% approval rating in, you know, six months.
- [30:21]
Galen Drook
No, I'm inclined to think it. It goes. The honeymoon period fades and it goes back to more like what it looked like in September.
- [30:28]
Lenny Brauner
I agree with that. That would be my best guess. Also, I mean, like you said, things, things are getting harder, right? Like, I mean, actually administering a city as complicated as New York City thing to do. If you look at mayoral historical approval rating, they generally go down. I mean, that was true for Eric Adams. That was true for Bill de Blasio. It's just difficult.
- [30:46]
Galen Drook
Yeah. So history suggests below 50%, but, you know, pass is not always prologue. So we will. We'll get back to you in 2027. Okay, next question from Bill. Bill says, when is the 2028 Republican presidential primary mock draft coming? I think in February. That's my goal. Don't hold me to it. But I think in February I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts on some of the likely contenders. Furthermore, how would your picks in both the Democratic and Republican primaries differ depending on who controls Congress after the midterms? I. E. Are there candidates that you think would be better suited to run with a divided government as opposed to a continued Republican trifecta? No. I'll try to answer this quickly. I don't think so. But I think that if Republicans still have a trifecta after the midterms, Democrats will be apoplectic and will probably be open to different kinds of things than they would be open to if they got the expected result of winning the House. And so it's not about who would be good to run with divided government. It's more just like who would Democrats be open to considering? And maybe all of a sudden they're open to considering somebody who's. Who's significantly more conservative. Or maybe they're open to somebody who just wants to burn it all down because they're so cynical about what has happened. I think it's more about the results themselves than who would campaign well under divided government.
- [32:17]
Lenny Brauner
I agree with that.
- [32:18]
Galen Drook
Then we're going to move on. Next question comes from Frost. Is there a world in which there is enough bipartisan support for a constitutional amendment that reforms the presidential pardon power?
- [32:31]
Lenny Brauner
No. I mean, the hurdle of a constitutional amendment is very high, Very, very high, considering where our politics, I say our, but like, you know, the politics of the United States is at right now. It is hard to imagine you're saying.
- [32:47]
Galen Drook
That because you're Austrian, not because you hate America.
- [32:50]
Lenny Brauner
I love America, of course, but yes, I am Austrian.
- [32:53]
Galen Drook
I just want to clarify. Anyway, sorry, keep going.
- [32:57]
Lenny Brauner
It's hard to imagine getting to a place again where constitutional amendments will be possible. I mean, obviously, I think that path exists, and my hope is that the United States is going to be on this path at some point, but it will probably take quite a bit longer for there to be the possibility of the broad majority getting behind something that needs, like a constitutional amendment.
- [33:18]
Galen Drook
And just to say, when it comes to presidential Pardon power. According to a recent YouGov poll, a majority 56% of Americans believe that the Constitution should be amended to limit the President's ability to grant pardons. 25% think the president's pardon power should not be limited. As you can guess, there's a differential by party. ¾ of Democrats support limiting the pardon power and Republican 45% of Republicans oppose. 34% in favor of limiting the pardon power. So obviously it's clear where the majority of Americans fall. But the majority of Americans landing somewhere and 3/4 of US states ratifying an amendment to the Constitution are different things. Okay, Brian asks who are the Republicans who disapprove of Trump? His approval rating among self identified Republicans is still well over 80% as it has been for pretty much the past nine years. But the people who you know are Republicans who don't approve of Trump, are these Republican non approvers still never Trumpers of old? Are they people who got turned off by January six? Are they people who have more recently changed their minds due to his performance in his second term? Is this a stable group of stubborn non maga Republicans or is it constantly changing group of people at the edge of the party with low loyalty? I'd love to hear an analysis by an expert crosstab diver. Lenny, are you that expert crosstab diver?
- [34:48]
Lenny Brauner
I'll start by saying I don't know if I am, but I will add by saying we actually need individual level response data to say anything about this. Like the crosstab data is not enough to really talk about this in particular. But one thing that I did find in the YouGov poll that I thought was interesting, 88% of Republicans, people who identify as Republicans support Donald Trump and amongst people who voted for him in 2024. So these are not people who identify as Republicans, these are people who voted for Donald Trump. So he sl completely different group. The numbers are pretty much identical. In the poll it was 86%, but considering the margin of error, that's very, very close to 88%. And so considering those numbers are so close to each other, my hunch is that these are mostly people. The Republicans who don't approve of Donald Trump are mostly people who are unhappy with his performance rather than people who are never Trumpers who I would imagine at this point, 10 years in, basically no longer for the most part identify as Republicans.
- [35:44]
Galen Drook
Okay, so that's actually a group of as they suggest, people on the edge of the Republican Party. Maybe people who are upset with actual policy performance or how the second term has gone thus far.
- [35:56]
Lenny Brauner
I think that's right.
- [35:57]
Galen Drook
Hmm. Okay. All right, interesting. So it's not like you're. You're Susan Collins type who, like. Well, I don't know who Susan Collins voted for.
- [36:05]
Lenny Brauner
Well, Susan Collins is also at the edge of the Republican coalition.
- [36:08]
Galen Drook
Yeah, but I mean, somebody who considers themselves a Republican is not a Trump supporter, kind of holds on to that Republican name. I don't know if Susan Collins fits because she might have voted for Trump. I. Some would have to look up who she voted for in 2024. But somebody who's like, I'm a Republican. This is my party. This is still not Trump's party. Like the Bushes or something like that, who did not support Trump from the get go, still do not support Trump, but call themselves Republicans because they. It's their part. This is an Adam Kinzinger, for example. I just listened back to an interview that I did with him for another reason. He's like, I'm a Republican. This is the Republican Party that I want. I did not vote for Trump, but I'm sticking to it.
- [36:50]
Lenny Brauner
I just don't know how many people like that exist sort of quote, unquote, in the real world.
- [36:53]
Galen Drook
Right.
- [36:54]
Lenny Brauner
I mean, this is a particular type of person that exists because they are an elected politician and that's why they identify as a Republican. Or maybe they're media personality and that's why they identify as a Republican. A normal voter probably doesn't think about parties that way.
- [37:06]
Galen Drook
Yeah, I think. I think that's a good point. Okay. Canyon submits two questions. The second is very long, but I think it will be our long question of the episode. The first one is shorter. Kenyon says, I'm a recent college grad and I'm currently on the job hunt. I studied unemployment. Sorry, I mean, medical anthropology, which I loved, but doesn't lead to any direct career outcomes. And any tips or tricks for recent grads. I'd love to live in D.C. and work in public health policy research that blends data with nuance. Do you have any career advice for Canyon? Don't move to D.C. yeah, maybe.
- [37:41]
Lenny Brauner
Maybe that. I mean, I lived in D.C. for three years. I liked it a lot, actually.
- [37:46]
Galen Drook
Yeah, I'm the D.C. cynic. You love D.C. okay.
- [37:49]
Lenny Brauner
We at the Post also sometimes look for people that have similar skill sets. Right. And, like, what we were really looking for is people that have, like, deep passion and interest in the data that they are meant to be analyzing. And so my general advice is sort of like, become a subject matter expert. In the data that you're interested in and then maybe talk publicly about what you're finding. I mean, obviously this is a really hard thing to do if you're also have a job on the side that you need to be sort of to make a living. But entering a field that way is sort of my general advice on for people who are looking for jobs in the sort of data world.
- [38:24]
Galen Drook
Yeah, that's an interesting point. My advice is maybe not so different, but it's. I don't have advice specific for medical anthropologists, but from my experience, just do the job that you want, which requires having free time, but with all of the tools that we have of substack. Okay, maybe I'm biased because I use that, but like social media, everyone, you can make a website in five seconds basically these days. Whatever. The thing is the job that you want, go and do it. Start putting your ideas and work out there and there's a small chance that it sort of takes off organically and that turns into a job. But how cool if it does? But even if it doesn't, the sort of likelier thing is that you'll have a portfolio that you can point to when you're interviewing at those jobs to say, hey, look, I'm not just here because I hope to someday do this work. I'm so good that I've already done it. And look at this portfolio. I mean, I don't pretend that I have all of the answers, but like when I graduated from college and podcasts were barely even a thing and I was what I wanted to do, I just started a podcast. No one ever listened to it. I put it on SoundCloud. But when I was then applying for jobs at Wisconsin Public Radio, which was my first full time job, and they were hiring people to create a new show, I was like, look, I created a show. You know, I did it by myself. It's on SoundCloud. Five people have heard it. But I did it. And you know, this whole substack enterprise has been something very different. But it's again like the people who were paying me to do a job disappeared. So now I'm just going to keep doing that job. And thankfully you're all still listening. But yeah, don't wait for somebody to tell you they want you to do the work. Just do it yourself.
- [40:12]
Lenny Brauner
Good advice. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.
- [40:16]
Galen Drook
Okay, Canyon's next real question is very, very long. So I'm just going to paraphrase it here, which is that he read Kamala Harris's book, 107 Days on a Thirteen Hour Road Trip, and basically came away saying that she just listens to whatever the party says, and you very much feel like she's sort of like, dictating back to the party, whatever, whatever they want to hear, and that it she seems inauthentic as a result. And he basically asked, like, is there a way that she could fully rebrand, run against the party, go on a listening tour of America, and then run in 2027? And he says that this is more of a test case, or he asked this question more abstractly that somebody else could try to do this, like Newsom or Buttigieg or frankly, any politician. But his question is, ultimately, do political rebrands work? And he said that Trump is not an actual example of this because after he lost in 2020, he didn't try to rebrand. He stuck with the same brand that he had from 2016. But are there actual examples of politicians being defined as one thing, like inauthentic, what have you, and coming to be defined as another, and maybe successfully winning.
- [41:40]
Lenny Brauner
In electoral politics, politicians are on occasion able to do some kind of rebrand. Bill Clinton rebranded himself as a sort of more centrist Democrat after having been a more liberal Democrat. Ronald Reagan rebranded as sort of an optimistic populist after having been more of a conservative ideologue. You know, Richard Nixon rebranded as an experienced statesman after he lost. I mean, that's sort of an example of someone who lost an election and managed to come back. But these are sort of more narrow rebrands, I would say. And also people who, except for Richard Nixon, hadn't been on a totally national scale. People's opinions get fixed into place based on what they see. And so Harris was obviously running as a national politician. And so there's a lot of people in this country who have an opinion of her that was less true for the governor of Arkansas or the governor of California. So I think it would be very, very difficult for a national politician to pull that off.
- [42:35]
Galen Drook
Yeah, what is it? Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers got in trouble on their podcast Les Colteristas, or got in trouble, quote, unquote, with their audience for saying that Jasmine Crockett was too well defined to win a statewide race for Senate in Texas, which, God bless them, if they want my job, they can have it, I'll take theirs. But I mean, if Jasmine Crockett is too well defined, which I don't know if that's the case, but may well could be, then Kamala Harris Certainly is. I think even the idea of a rebrand would feel would sort of like add to the inauthentic fire as opposed to eliminate it, if that's the goal. I mean, she'd have to do something real funky and creative. I would like to watch it and do the analysis of it, but I don't know that it would be successful. Okay, final question here of our we still didn't get to all of the questions that listeners submitted after two whole podcasts worth of this, but Kevin asks random question which presidential election resulted in the winning candidate winning in the most difficult political landscape for their party? I asked friend of the pod, Jacob Rubashkin about this, which I will share with you because I'm not enough of an elections nerd to know the answer to this. But Lenny, do you have an answer before I get to Jacobs?
- [43:54]
Lenny Brauner
No, I don't. I mean, I think it's a really interesting question. I'm kind of curious to hear what Jacob says.
- [43:58]
Galen Drook
Okay, Jacob says a more difficult question to answer than it appears. Since we tend to consider the presidential election to be the barometer for the national environment, I would volunteer two initial suggestions. Probably symptoms of recency bias more than anything else. But that is like a really interesting point. Sort of.
- [44:17]
Lenny Brauner
What is the environment if not the outcome of the presidential election?
- [44:20]
Galen Drook
Exactly. Exactly. And so he offers 1998. George H.W. bush wins despite Democrats increasing their substantial majorities in the House and Senate and picking up a governorship. Okay, interesting. And then 2016 is his other answer. Trump wins the presidency despite losing the popular vote handily, Republicans losing seats in the House and Senate, and the outgoing Democratic president sporting a 57% approval rating.
- [44:47]
Lenny Brauner
I think those are both good examples. I agree with him that that is probably colored by recency bias.
- [44:53]
Galen Drook
Do you have any that aren't?
- [44:54]
Lenny Brauner
I mean, I could say the election of 1816. Would anyone check me on this? I have no idea.
- [45:01]
Galen Drook
No, go ahead, give it to me. Why was it the election of 1816?
- [45:05]
Lenny Brauner
I'm gonna stop talking. Something to do with the War of 1812.
- [45:09]
Galen Drook
So Jacob has recency bias. Let's see. Let's just see. For the sake of things. If AI also has recency bias, we're going to ask ChatGPT which presidential election resulted in the winning candidate winning in the most difficult political landscape for their party. Boy, does ChatGPT not have recency bias. Number one, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.
- [45:32]
Lenny Brauner
Oh, that's what I meant. I'm sorry, 76. Obviously not 18.
- [45:36]
Galen Drook
Why was unusually difficult? Hayes won despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, who had a clear majority, the election was highly contested, with disputed electoral votes in several states and culminating in the controversial Compromise of 1877 to decide the winter the winner. I mean, I get, I guess that is a good answer in a sense, but it's kind of saying that he won an election where the results were contested and that's sort of why then he says the election of 1800 with Thomas Jefferson. I refer to ChatGPT as he. Interesting. I'll think about that later. But next election, 1860 with Abraham Lincoln, then George W. Bush in 2000. I'm more curious about that one, why it was difficult Bush won the presidency through the Electoral College after oh, they're kind of just spotlighting elections with controversial results as opposed to national environments. And I guess they didn't have polls in the 1800s, so it would be hard to test the national environment. And those polls could have been inaccurate. All right, Lenny, have we reached the end of the rope?
- [46:46]
Lenny Brauner
I think we may have. Since we're talking about the election of 1800, we have gone as far back as we can go.
- [46:53]
Galen Drook
As always, listeners, keep sending in your questions on Substack. You can find me on Twitter and you can find me@galen GDP politics.com But Lenny, thank you for joining me today.
- [47:05]
Lenny Brauner
It was great to be here.
- [47:06]
Galen Drook
As always, my name is Galen Druke. Remember to become a subscriber to this podcast@gdpolitics.com and wherever you get your podcasts. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes. You can also join our paid subscriber chat and pass along questions for us to discuss on the show and you ensure that we can keep making this podcast. Also, be a friend of the POD and go give us a five star rating wherever you listen, maybe even tell a friend about us. Thanks for listening and we will see you soon.